


Smells Like Teen Spirit (and Marijuana)

by RobinsonsWereHere



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Angst, Emotions, Family Feels, Gen, Marijuana, Mother-Daughter Relationship, it's not too bad but i'm tagging just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:01:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21705625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsonsWereHere/pseuds/RobinsonsWereHere
Summary: Karen is on high alert, now that Iris has her first boyfriend. When she finds the two of them smoking weed, it doesn't go well. But maybe there's more to this that a boy who's a bad influence...
Relationships: Iris Vick & Karen Vick
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Smells Like Teen Spirit (and Marijuana)

**Author's Note:**

> okay this is Not At All Related to this fic but. I'm eating holiday jelly beans. And the peppermint ones SUCK. like, the pumpkin pie ones are better than the peppermint ones. I FEEL BETRAYED
> 
> (oh, sorry, were you expecting a useful a/n?)

Karen sets the newspaper aside and grabs her laptop, beginning a strongly worded letter to the editor. Yes, it’s Sunday afternoon, and she technically doesn’t have to be working, but there is sensitive information on one of her cases in that paper and she _knows_ they know it shouldn’t be there.

Honestly, Karen feels like she’s almost always working. Yes, she sets aside time for family and tries to have family dinners at least three nights a week, but even in her free time, she finds herself gravitating toward the job. After all, she has a lot of responsibilities, and this sort of balancing act takes a lot of attention. She’s a busy woman.

She is not, however, too busy to hear the rattle of Iris’ door closing upstairs. Her sixteen-year-old daughter has her boyfriend over at the house this afternoon, and Karen’s been on high alert the whole time. Call her paranoid, but this kid is seventeen and a half. She doesn’t like the look of him, and she _especially_ does not want him behind closed doors with her daughter.

Before she’s really even registered it, she’s shutting her computer and heading for the stairs. When she gets to the top she can see down the hall, and sure enough, Iris’ door is closed. Karen quickly paces toward it and knocks rapidly, forcefully, before pushing the door open. The smell registers before she sees a thing.

Iris and her too-old, too-unkempt, too-shady boyfriend are sitting on her bed and smoking pot.

“Mom!” Iris shouts, like she has any right to be offended when she’s breaking half the household rules, and a few laws as well. “Mom, what the hell?”

“Watch your mouth,” Karen warns, although that’s hardly the main issue here. “What do you think you’re doing!?”

“None of your business, Mom!” Iris is scrambling to hide the evidence, although the smell still permeates the atmosphere. “Nothing’s happening, go away!”

“Do not talk to me like that, young lady,” Karen snaps. She steps into the room, grabbing the scumbag who calls himself Iris’ boyfriend by the neck of his trashy hoodie. “And as for you, I think it’s time you left.”

“What the fuck? Get off me!” The kid scrambles away from her as she drags him off of the bed, and all Karen has to do is follow him down the stairs. When they reach the kitchen, she yanks the front door open and grabs his shoulder painfully, forcing him onto the porch.

“Get out.”

He runs off, and Karen stalks back down the hall, finding Iris at the foot of the stares, her mouth open in shock. “Mom, are you insane!?”

“I should be asking you that question, Iris, what the hell were you _thinking!?”_

Iris folds her arms over her chest. “Geez, Mom, calm down, we didn’t even get high.”

“Oh, and that makes it okay for you to be smoking? You’re sixteen!”

“Yeah, and I’m going to college in two years! I have a driver’s license! You can’t control me forever, Mom!”

Karen is struggling to keep her temper in check. “Iris Vick, you are not a legal adult yet, and you know we have rules in this family, rules you are expected to follow. You are not allowed to smoke, whether it be weed or anything else. You are not allowed to do drugs. I expected you to make good decisions when we let you start dating, but clearly I shouldn’t have trusted your judgement.”

Iris laughs. “Oh, you trusted me? Really? Can I have one example of when that’s happened? Because it seems like you’ve been breathing down my neck ever since I got to high school.”

“If I’m being strict, it’s because I want to keep you safe!” Karen runs a hand through her hair, huffing in irritation. “You are too young to make rational decisions about what’s good and bad for you! Smoking will mess up your lungs, your brain, god, your whole damn life! You _know_ that!”

“God, Mom, calm down! It was only once!” Iris rolls her eyes, looking as if she can’t possibly understand why Karen cares so much.

“It doesn’t matter how many times you did it, Iris!” Karen throws her hands in the air. “It’s illegal!”

“Oh, yeah, god forbid I do anything that makes _you_ look bad, _Chief.”_

Karen finds herself silences by the derision in Iris’ voice. “You know that’s not what I meant,” she says quietly.

“Well, I can’t think of any other reason why you would care,” Iris snaps. “You know, I’m surprised you even noticed us smoking, given how much attention you normally pay to me.” With that, she pivots and stalks right back up the stairs.

Karen tries to follow. “Iris--”

“Don’t you have a case to be solving?”

_”Iris--”_

Before Karen even hits the top of the stairs, Iris storms into her bedroom and slams the door behind her.

\---

Karen paces back and forth across her living room, deep in thought. Yes, she knows she works too much. She has long hours to begin with, and often spends more time at the station than she needs to. But it’s always been that way, and Karen makes sure to spend time with her family, too. She doesn’t drive Iris to soccer practice, but she makes it to at least one game a month, and every postseason game. She doesn’t pick Iris up from school, but when she gets home, she devotes all of her attention to listening to Iris talk about her day. Yes, she works too much, but her family is still more important.

She’d thought Iris understood that, but apparently not.

Still, the blame isn’t entirely on Karen. Marijuana is illegal under the age of eighteen, no matter who your parents are. Iris should know better than to do drugs, especially considering she’s on her school’s official soccer team, though they’re not in season right now. Karen being absent or distant doesn’t make it okay for Iris to smoke. 

It must be the boyfriend’s fault, Karen decides. Her daughter is smart, and usually has good judgement. She must have been talked into it by that irritating scum bag. _I knew he was bad news the moment I saw him._

Groaning to herself, Karen reaches for her cell phone. It’s not worth going into the station, not now, but maybe she can have one of her officers run a background check on the kid. It’ll make her feel at least a little better.

\---

Richard knows something is wrong as soon as he walks in the door. Karen is standing at the sink, scrubbing a dinner plate almost violently. Now, normally, his wife is of the ‘this is what we have a dishwasher for’ mindset, so she only hand-washes the dishes when she needs to keep herself busy. Between that, the stony look on her face, and the palpable tension in the atmosphere, he knows she’s pissed.

“Hi, honey,” he says cautiously, hanging his jacket on a hook.

Karen sighs heavily and sets the plate in the drying rack with enough force to rattle it. “Do I work too much?” She continues before he can answer. “Okay, yes, I do, but have I _ever_ given you reason to think that I care more about work than about our family?”

“No?” Richard still isn’t sure what’s going on. “No, in fact, I know you take steps to prioritize us over work… what’s this about?”

“Jesus, I’m doing my best!” Karen throws her hands in the air, still not answering his question. “God, the way she looked at me, you’d think I was cancelling Christmas, but I’m not the one in the wrong here, she _knows_ she shouldn’t have been smoking! She broke the rules, not me! It’s not my fault she’s in trouble!”

“What? Is this about Iris? What do you mean, smoking?”

Karen groans and turns off the sink, angrily drying her hands on a dish towel. “So she had that no-good boyfriend over, right? And I hear her door close, so I go up there to make sure they’re not up to no good. I knock on the door, it opens, and I take one look and realize they’re both smoking weed.”

Richard blinks. _Oh, this is bad._ “I’m assuming it all went downhill from there.”

“We had a fight,” Karen confirms, visibly stiffening. “I knew that kid was a piece of work. I mean, come on, we both know it wasn’t Iris’ idea.”

“Probably not,” he agrees. “Did you… talk to her about why she did it?”

His wife shakes her head. “Not in the slightest. I tried to, of course, but all that got me was a screaming fight. Iris finds fault in the amount of time I spend working.”

Now Richard finally understands her first line of questioning. He sighs softly and walks over to Karen, taking her hand. “Karen, I don’t like the guy any more than you do, but… if that’s the first thing she brought up, have you considered that maybe she was smoking in an effort to get your attention?”

She looks up sharply. “This isn’t about me.”

“Logically, it wouldn’t make any sense, yeah. But we both know teenagers aren’t logical.”

She groans and drops her head into her hands. “God, Rich, do you really think so?”

He shrugs. “I dunno, just a guess… and…”

“And what?” Karen looks up, one eyebrow raised.

He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Well, I mean, I know you go above and beyond to try to be here for our family, but Iris… well, with her being busy, and you being busy… and she’s just at that age, you know, she only sees things her way…”

Her eyes narrow. “Has she said something to you?”

Iris has said a lot to him, vocally and otherwise. Sometimes it’s a sigh and a frown when she climbs into the car after school. Sometimes it’s her falling asleep on the couch because she tried to wait up for Karen, who didn’t make it home for another hour. Sometimes it’s her holding a medal from a race or a trophy for a soccer game and hardly even looking happy about it, her gaze scanning the crowd for her mom.

“Yeah,” he admits, “it’s come up.”

Karen groans. “Shit. I gotta talk to her.”

Richard nods. “That… that would be a good idea.”

Grumbling to herself, Karen stalks through the doorway and down the hall.

\---

Iris buries her face in her pillow when she hears knocking on her bedroom door. “Go away,” she snaps. It’s most likely her mom, and she can’t get in any more trouble for snapping than she already is.

“I’m not going to,” comes her mother’s voice, “and you know I know how to break down a door. Please let me in.”

“Go _away,”_ Iris repeats, sniffling. “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

“I can come back later, if that’s more convenient for you,” Karen says, and Iris doesn’t know if she’s bein sarcastic or not.

Some ugly part of Iris, deep inside, is glad to make her mom struggle, to not let her in, to bask in the attention, the fact that all of her attention is on her. Really, what it all boils down to is this: she wants her mom.

“You can come in,” she mumbles, kicking away the chair that’s blocking the door. The handle turns slowly, and Karen steps through, sitting carefully on Iris’ bed. When she starts rubbing her back, Iris wants to cry.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, muffling her words with the pillow still over her face. “I know it was stupid. I shouldn’t have smoked.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Karen answers. Iris removes the pillow and looks at her, surprised. Her mother smiles. “I know I should spend more time with you. You’re the light of my life, you know?”

Iris frowns. “You’re busy. I get it. I don’t need to be so childish.”

“Iris.” Karen takes her hand in hers. “Iris, honey, you’re not being childish. I wish you would tell me when you need me, instead of…” she sighs. “Whatever this disaster was.”

“I guess I messed up,” she agrees.

“Well, we can learn from our mistakes.” Her mom smiles. “How does a girls’ night sound? We can make homemade pizza and watch whatever movie you want. This weekend.”

Iris smiles, sitting up to hug her mother. “That sounds awesome, Mom.”

Karen hugs her right back, kissing her hair. “I love you, Iris.”

“I love you too.”

They sit there for a while, and with every breath Iris takes, she feels a little calmer, like some more weight lifts from her shoulders/ “Mom?” she asks, after a long silence.

“Mhm?”

“Am I still in trouble?”

Karen’s laughter shakes Iris, too. “Oh, you bet your ass you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos make me very happy :) come find me on tumblr at trixiesfranklin !


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